Water Rescue On Front Street...

I assuming the video upload worked, I have tried a few times with no luck. This was one of the calls we had on Friday last week, we were dispatched to North Front Street near the city line for a car in the water with the occupant inside. One of the most difficult things to do during a flood is determining the best route of travel because of flooded streets. On this call I drove out of the city into the township to approach the incident. With apparatus on both sides we waited for the Utility to arrive with the raft. A crew of three walked the raft in to the auto and assisted the elderly man into the raft and out to safety. Once out we placed him on the front bumper of my wagon for EMS to check him out. The last photograph is Captain Jim McHenry "B" platoon and Battalion Chief Herb Berger "C" platoon working overtime with us.

I turned out to be an 87 year old man delivering meals on wheels, had this been a younger person we would not have been very happy about the call and he more than likely would have been fined. But do to circumstances we handled this a little different.

I would like to point out that the local news paper the Patriot News Harrisburg reported on the incident, of course it was almost all wrong. They stated that River Rescue brought the man to safety, WRONG it was the HFD. They also said that in the photo caption that he was setting on the bumper of a Susq. Twp. fire engine, WRONG again, they were not even there. I did send an email to three different people at the Patriot pointing out the errors but none were corrected nor did I even get a reply. I guess it is more important to just report things even if they are not true than to report the actual news. I should be used to this by now but it just pisses me off. In the last year they have only wanted to report negatives about the fire bureau and no positives.

Second Day Light Working The Flood...

First call of the morning was for a smoke investigation, when we arrived we found the resident had fired up a grill out back to make coffee. This resident was in the area that was to evacuate the day before and PPL turned off their electric. Floyd Wise, O.T. Lieutenant on Tower 3 and the driver Eric Jenkins.

The second call of the day was for Green and Lewis Streets for a fuel odor investigation. In the first photo you can see the sheen on the water, very common during flooding. There is nothing we can do on calls like this but say yep, there it is and go home. This is a few blocks from the river in a low area.

Overtime Jeremy Saul, Jeff "Skull" Miller and our Captain Jim Mchenry on the last call of the day for reported smoke from a vacant house. We found nothing and in typical form this run came in minutes before quiting time.

Mike Souders the overtime driver on Wagon 4 does his best to hold up the tower.

There was numerous other calls during the day but only one other that I photographed and that was a water rescue on Second Street. I will post photos of that incident on Friday.

I did not work the rest of the tour as I was off sick for the first time in 13 years. What the companies got into over the weekend in unknown to me since I no longer listen once I leave the station.

Working The Harrisburg Flood...

On Thursday September 8, 2011 I reported for my first day out at the Harrisburg Fire Department. By the time we got to work the Battalion Chief's and street firemen and officers had most of the wheels in motion for the soon to be arriving flood waters. Flyer's had already been distributed by the firefighters the night before and the Paxton Fire Station No. 6 was already moving items to high ground and preparing to relocate to Station 1. By the way the last time we evacuated the building was in January 1996 and at that time I worked in that station, by the time they were ready to occupy the building again I had bid Tower 2 in station 1. There was numerous calls through out the day but nothing like the county was getting as the city had time to prepare and the river had not overflowed its banks yet.

In the morning we headed out and went door to door asking residents to evacuate the area as flood waters at that time were expected to reach 30 feet, a number that none of us on the job had ever worked before. By early afternoon we headed out again to drive a large area announcing on the public address system that residents were to evacuate the the area as soon as possible.

In the first photograph we are approaching MaClay Street on Front Street (the Governors Mansion is on the left) and the water has crossed the intersection. This is one of many places it had overflowed its banks and crossed Front Street. By the time we went by this area again the water was moving up MaClay Street. In the second photograph Billy-Bob Holtzman uses the Pa system to read the prepared statement of evacuation.

I took very few photographs of the flood waters as every time we went out it was for a mission and not sight seeing. I plan to make two more posts on Fridays daylight shift before going back to wildlife photos. By the way all photos were taken with my Sony Cyber-shot.

What A Beautiful Animal...

I can't say much more, the title says it all. These are such beautiful animals and I am so lucky to live withing four hours of this place. He this is two posts in one week, who knows maybe I can make it three this week.

Whitetails Up Close At SNP...

Sometimes at SNP you get the opportunity to photograph whitetail deer at very close range. This can be for a number of reasons, often because you have invaded their space forgetting the fact that they are wild animals. Often times this disrupts their what they were going to do. I for one do not do this nor do I condone this type of activity. Another way to get these photographs is from the open window of your automobile, I have done this many times. These photographs were captured in either of these ways, instead they happened by chance. After arriving at SNP last month Shane and I checked in, grabbed some dinner and decided to head out into the meadows where a herd of deer ere feeding. It was still early enough that the sun was high in the sky but the whitetails were the reason why we were there and e wanted to enjoy there company. We made our way to the rock pile and decided to set up in that spot to shoot the herd. About an hour into photographing the deer this fve by five decided he wanted to eat in the same place we were at. After coming around the rocks I assumed he would move on, instead he came towards us nat caring in the least that we were there. At this point I had to step back from the D7000 with the 200-400 VR f4 on it because he was to close to photograph. Shane on the other hand was shooting the D90 with the 70-200 VR f2.8 on it so he was able to keep on firing. It only took me about five minutes to remember that I had the D300 with the 24-70 2.8 hanging around my shoulder so I was back in business. These photographs go a long way in showing how acclimated the animals are to humans at SNP, even with that said one must still remember that they are wild animals and must be treated as such.